You know they say that animals don’t have souls, and therefore don’t go to heaven.

Perhaps this is true, but I have believed for a long time, and hold to it still, that animals are precious gifts from God to us. I believe that everything God creates he creates in love and that when they die, they too return to their maker and see his loving face.

I also believe very strongly that our pets, those that we love and care for, do more for us than we do for them.

Today I say goodbye to a beloved family pet, Domino. She was the most unexpected gift our family could ask for, showing up on a Father’s Day Sunday outside of church. A cute little puppy with no home, she’d been left on the doorstep of a family that couldn’t handle a dog.

So we took her into our home and our hearts, thinking of how much fun a pet dog could be.

What we couldn’t imagine was how her kind and gentle spirit would encourage and uplift us. She was a family dog, through and through, seeking always for harmony and peace. She hated yelling and fighting and was a fierce protector.

So, maybe you don’t agree with me, but I think she was an angel. I think she was sent to us from God himself to be a protector and a glue of sorts for our family.

She’s old and blind and confused now, but I think that we are not simply letting her die today, we are sending her back to God in the best way we can. With dignity, love, respect, and thanks.

Domino was an angel, and her assignment with us is over. She fulfilled her duty, and she closes her eyes today with great expectancy because the next time she opens them she will look into the face of her maker. ”Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Where the angel goes to next and in what form, I cannot say. All I can say is that I am ever so thankful that we were blessed with her for the time we were.

Domino, your message lingers on: love and peace. Family and joy. These are the things that matter.

It was a dark and stormy night and the youngest of two daughter, Lara Franklin, did in fact know exactly where her towel was. It was hanging innocently, and quite uselessly I might add, on her towel rack in her washroom. It was a frilly purple thing with flowers embroidered on the edges – the variety you might expect to find in the washroom of your ninety-year-old grandmother, not in the washroom of a perfectly modern twenty-eight year old’s.

But anyhow, that’s where it was.

Now, every good hitchhiker knows that a towel hanging on a rack in a room, which is not the one you are presently in, is never a good idea. And it is especially a terrible idea when the sudden ringing of the doorbell startles you out of a peaceful sit with a good detective novel.

This is of course, as you might guess, exactly what happened to Lara.

The doorbell rang and she jumped so suddenly that the book fell from her hands and landed right on the top of her left foot. It was a hardback book too and the corner managed to lodge itself right between two of the bones in her feet.

“Son of a bitch!” She exclaimed, adrenaline coursing through her body and making her cross. “Who on earth?”

Of course this is a perfectly natural thing to say when you live on the earth and you are expecting another earthling to ring your doorbell. And in this case, Lara was correct in her assumption. It wasn’t a little green man at all.

A side note about little green men, if I might: There are in fact, many different planets and galaxies out there and many different life forms. However, this common belief held by earthlings that all “aliens” as they are called, are small and green, is a bit of a sore spot to most of the universe.

There are, of course, the Biltervoltian people of Holipop Seven, who are both small and green, but they are a rather useless people known only for their exceptionally fond feelings toward earthlings (they have a slightly distorted idea that earthlings are trying to make them popular with this “little green men” thing).

But the majority of life forms are neither small, nor green, and they do not take kindly to being stereotyped that way. For this reason (as well as many others), when the Vogans were attempting to build their new hyperspace expressway and held a vote to see which planets ought to be blown up, earth was among the top to be nominated (they were beat only by the planet Flatulicient – what with the green movement in the galaxy, no one had room for a stinky, albeit fun, planet like that.).

But back to Lara and her door. There was in fact no strange life form from a different planet at her door. But a strange life form did exist there.

A good storyteller would have you guess at this point, so let’s have some guessing time shall we?

It was a dark and stormy night, and the monster at Lara’s door gleamed in at her hungrily. She had no idea she was opening her world up to a werewolf!

No? Not quite good enough?

Okay, what else?

Oh yes: a tall wizard waited there to take her away to a new magical land!

Been done you say?

Okay, how about a sexy vampire?

Yes, that really is quite good.

But guessing time is over, and sadly for you, nothing quite so interesting was waiting at Lara’s door.

No, no.

It was a dark and stormy night, and Lara’s pretty towel hung uselessly in her washroom. Waiting outside her door was a truly foul creature, able to suck the life out of any who crossed it’s path…